CLAIM: FILTHY FOLEY ONLINE MESSAGES WERE PAGE PRANK GONE AWRY
I call BS on that. Whether or not the page was actually interested in having sex with Mark Foley is not the issue here. The issue is whether or not Mark Foley was trying to entice a 16 year old boy to have some kind of sexual contact with him.
If the page played him so what?
Let’s say some other group of prankster pages contact any other congressman, are we to believe that the pages are so enticing and members of congress so unwitting that they can be lured into some salacious conversation in which they would otherwise not participate. Wow, those pages sure are powerful.
If Mark Foley got played or pranked that really doesn’t excuse the fact that he was trying to get into the pants of a 16 year old boy.
What about the congressman who tried to set up a date with a 14 year old online (who turned out to be an undercover policeman) is his excuse going to be “but she was flirting with me”. Come on.
So, he’s an alcoholic.
No, wait, he was molested as a child.
No, wait, he’s gay.
No, wait, he’s a Democrat. (FOX News)
No, wait, was tricked into typing this by the Democrats. (Rush Bimbo)
No, wait, it was all a political prank.
No, wait, there’s 20 more spins Rove hasn’t thought up yet…
Foley & Hasert are GOP PACmen: waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle…
The DC media have been talking to former pages going back several years, all of whom confirm that they were warned about Foley. This is not a new problem, by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. Or spin.
Actually since the page is, according to friends, “NOT A HOMOSEXUAL , NOT EVEN LITTLE BIT!!” , and is, in fact, a conservative Republican. it would be sort of amusing if a prank by a Republican page winds up costing his party. I’d like to see how that’'s going to play on his resume.
Or as Jon Stewart put it last night…
9/11 changed everything.
Puh-lease. This is just like the Limbaugh thing: even if you could explain one of these things as a prank, how can you explain all the other instances, and Foley’s reputation? This didn’t start with the reported cybersex. And if there was real evidence that this was a prank, I doubt the FBI would have set up a hotline for ex-pages.
FRUIT! Ahhhh, it’s a FRUIT!
I guess if you were a heterosexual (possibly somewhat homophobic) page who had been warned about Foley and got really squeaked out when he was extra nice to you I can see how it would be tempting to bait him a little. Hell, it would be tempting to bait him alot just to laugh at what an incredible idiot he is.
I mean, really, those IMs were laughable.
And if that’s what happened in that particular case it really doesn’t excuse Foley’s behavior, but it is damn funny.
Maybe I just don’t know enough people, and I haven’t seen the text of the IMs in question, but I don’t think a lot of kids would do this and go as far as real cybersex. I see kids as having trouble staying ‘in character.’
By the way, it’s not like this would be the first time Drudge was completely wrong about a Democratic scandal. From what I can discern, he’s a blind pig who found one acorn - and that was eight years ago.
If I may answer the question posed by the OP with another question, “Does it matter?” I’m no Congressman, even less a chicken hawk, but I have worked with youth groups pretty extensively in the past, and anyone with half a brain knows that if a kid starts getting overly familiar for any reason, you shut it down unequivocally. That’s what grown-ups do. Some of us do it because we’re well-adjusted mentally and morally, and others do it just because we don’t want to go to jail. Foley obviously was incapable or unwilling of making either of those discernments.
You would think a politician who’d been living as a closeted gay man in a highly conservative political party for so long would have been a little more savvy about a potential “setup” such as this. So even if it’s true anywhere other than in Drudge’s fevered imagination, Foley still loses for being such a dick-led dumbass.
So, the 16 year old page tricked Foley into asking him “Do I make you horny, even a little bit?”. Pretty good prank there.
It was close to Halloween, and Foley was just trying to sew the page a deer costume.
See? Explains it all.
I wonder if he tricked him into keeping the Blackberry with the stains on it… :eek:
Well… now a purportedly straight arrow 21 year old man with conservative political ambitions gets to explain to his circle of influence that, that ol’ faggot Foley really didn’t give him a big chubby, no siree Bob, not even a little bit. It was a… a joke …see!
Either way it plays, it’s damned amusing as a political tragi-comedy…
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more.
No, that’s just Hastert at a buffet breakfast.
How dare you! Jordan told me himself he’s not a tool taster. He.does.not.taste.tool! NO way! Stop making like he’s a Gaylord or something!
Not only did the page at the center of this whole flap prank Foley into sending sexually explicit e-mails, three other totally independent pages from different classes told ABC News that they pranked Foley exactly the same way.
Isn’t that just a helluva coincidence?